Why Crimea matters

“We have spent thirty years trying to integrate Russia into the international system, and now we are trying to kick it out again.”

These words — from a senior British official — sum up the disappointment and bewilderment of western diplomats struggling to handle Russia. They face two imperfect options: inaction in the face of Russia’s territorial aggression, and reacting so strongly that they unravel the international system that has sustained order for the last five decades.

As pro-Russian protesters declare a “people’s republic” in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, Western leaders are smart to focus on deterring Putin from expanding beyond Crimea. But the West needs to think more about how its actions are seen beyond the Kremlin. The consequences of Crimea could be even more dramatic at a global level than within the post-Soviet countries.

In his March 18 speech, Putin expressed three ideas that Europeans have rejected since World War Two — nationalism that is not tempered by the guilt of war; identity defined by ethnicity, rather than geography or institutions; and social conservatism based in religion.

Yet these ideas remain popular outside the West. Just look at the Middle East, where Iran and Saudi Arabia are both defending their “people” across borders. China may one day want to defend its citizens overseas, in the same way that Putin sees himself as the defender of ethnic Russians. If other countries view Russia’s actions as cost-free, they could carry out copy-cat incursions.

America’s allies could also react in worrying ways if they lose trust in western deterrence. I recently spoke to well-connected military strategists in Tokyo and Seoul, who were disappointed by the West’s reaction to Russian expansionism. They predicted that within Japan and South Korea, security hawks might call for nuclear weapons as a hedge against American withdrawal from the world.

But if the West’s attempts to preserve its credibility are too clumsy, they could also lead to disorder — in particular, if the West throws Russia out of the global economy and the institutions that govern it.

For the last few decades, western powers have benefited from international institutions that they designed and policed. They have exerted political influence by threatening to cast nations out of the global economy, as they’ve done by using sanctions to cripple the Iranian, Burmese and Serbian economies.

Western countries have used access to their economic benefits as a lever for political change. The nations of central and Eastern Europe were forced to implement 80,000 pages of European legislation — governing everything from gay rights to the genetic code of soy beans — in order to join the European Union and get access to its single market.

It is this experience that has led the West to believe in the transformative power of its institutions. Western countries often cite others’ embrace of their norms as proof of the West’s “soft power.” But the reality is that the embrace of these norms has had as much to do with the hard power of capital, technology and access to markets.

The rise in former western colonies — such as India, China and Brazil — has not led to the overturning of these post-war institutions. These countries have reluctantly supported sanctions to punish Iran and North Korea.

But these rising powers are uncomfortable with the way the West has used global institutions to advance its interests. As a result, they increasingly circumvent global institutions by creating bilateral arrangements. Look at how the WTO has been marginalized, while a new generation of bilateral and regional trade deals is emerging in its place. In the G20, the BRICS have formed a new caucus to help drive an anti-Western agenda.

If the West now tries to use these institutions to act against Russia, it may provoke the rising powers to side with Moscow. According to University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, an attempt by President Obama to sanction the world’s ninth-largest economy could blunt U.S. financial power. Cole asks: “Who would want a U.S.-dominated international currency exchange regime if you knew at any moment it could be weaponized against you?”

Putin’s speech emphasized how selectively the West has adhered to international norms — backing the principle of non-interference when others intervene, but developing new norms to justify its own interventions in Kosovo and Iraq. His critique of western hypocrisy resonates with many countries outside the West, as we saw in the March 27 U.N. vote on the annexation of Crimea.

The result appeared to be a defeat for Putin: 100 countries voted to condemn the invasion, while a dozen outcast countries (headlined by North Korea and Venezuela) voted on Putin’s side. But when you look at which countries abstained from the vote — including EU hopefuls and protectorates like Serbia and Kosovo, as well as emerging powers such as Brazil, India and China — the picture is less rosy.

This is the essence of the dilemma facing the West. React too meekly, and encourage further territorial expansion and regional arms races. But react too strongly, and risk driving other countries to sidestep global institutions and blunt western power.

Small events can have huge, unintended consequences. The assassination of an archduke in the Balkans led to the dissolution of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires.

The annexation of Crimea could begin the dissolution of the western-led international order.

PHOTOS: A man and children look at Russian tanks on freight cars after their arrival in Crimea in the settlement of Gvardeiskoye near the Crimean city of Simferopol March 31, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer MILITARY)

Ukrainian servicemen push military vehicles before loading them on freight cars to transport to other regions at a railway station in the Crimean city of Simferopol April 8, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

Mr. Leonard, thank you for your dissenting, non-MSM opinion,
and prodding the US Administration to not make even more
serious mistakes in Ukraine.

For a German reaction, in accord with your analysis:
http://rt.com/news/germans-support-putin -ukraine-265/
NATO’s expansion into Ukraine is against German interests
which promote a trade block from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The US aims “to deny Ukraine a role as a bridge between
Eurasian Union and European Union.”
“In any case, there should be no further expansion of NATO
towards the Russian Borders.”

Isn’t there some political benefit in the resurrection of the cold war? I mean the drug war and the war on terrorism are getting old for the ignorant masses and perhaps we should have some fresh entertainment for them. Something new (or at least refreshed) for them to fear. We cannot truly support stability as that will mean complacency on the part of those that need to be manipulated for each election, and thus allows the democrats and republicans to keep facist leaders in place. So, I suspect that even if we have a rational plan, we could make the crimean thing seem near fatal by stating things correctly. Perhaps we could suggest that the crimean issue could lead to the downfall of western civilization or something like that. Thus, the fools that think we have a democracy and are free, will be frightened into accepting continuation of the facism and a decrease in freedoms and democracy.

Pushing modernism in all its nasty guises is becoming the raison d’être of the West.

However, most of the world is still traditional, i.e., socially conservative and nation-based, with “nation” having its original meaning of a group related by blood, an extended family. They’re not buying modernism, and are increasingly resisting having it foisted on them.